Cancer treatments are tough, both on a victim--and on his wallet.

The physical pain a victim endures from cancer treatments such as chemotherapy is aggravated by "financial toxicity," or the massive expenses cancer treatment entails.

In the U.S., the cost of cancer care is rising faster than the cost of health care. The cost of new cancer drugs is increasing faster than the cost of overall cancer care.

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A team of University of Chicago oncologists has developed the first tool to measure a cancer victim's risk for, and ability to tolerate, financial stress. The researchers named their tool, COST, for COmprehensive Score for financial Toxicity.

COST is a list of 11 probing statements assembled and refined from conversations with 150 patients with advanced cancer.

"Few physicians discuss this increasingly significant side effect with their patients," said study author Jonas de Souza, MD, a cancer specialist at the University of Chicago Medicine.

"Physicians aren't trained to do this. It makes them, as well as patients, feel uncomfortable," he said. "We aren't good at it. We believe that a thoughtful, concise tool that could help predict a patient's risk for financial toxicity might open the lines of communication. This gives us a way to launch that discussion."

The team of doctors that developed COST initially came up with a list of 147 statements. The list was progressively reduced with the help of inputs from patients until the final 11 statements were reached.

The 11 statements are short and easy to understand. An example is item 2 that states: "My out-of-pocket medical expenses are more than I thought they would be." Item 7 states that "I am able to meet my monthly expenses."

For each statement, patients choose from five responses: not at all, a little bit, somewhat, quite a bit, or very much.

The patient's answers could help caregivers determine who is likely to need education, financial counseling or referral to a support network. COST could also predict which patient likely to have financial problems that require interventions.

The researchers are now conducting a larger study to validate their initial findings and correlate the newly developed scale with quality of life and anxiety in cancer patients.

TagsCancer, cheaper, treatment, cost